Heller McAlpin

This novel stands apart from other tales of mothers stretched too thin. Jessica Stanley weaves family frustrations with British politics and global events because our life and our times are connected.

The Secret Life of a Cemetery is a paean to the renowned Parisian cemetery, Père Lachaise. There, 10,000 visitors a day seek the graves of some 4,500 notable figures.

Didion's book is an intimate chronicle of the author's struggle to help her daughter, even if it meant digging into her own long-unexamined neuroses.

Rooney's fourth novel is a story about learning to accept loss. And though it has its share of grief and strife, it's happier and less disturbing than Normal People and Beautiful World, Where Are You.

Richard Powers' latest novel brims with love for humanity and the planet. He makes clear that while humans have made this planet our amusement park, we have not always taken proper care of our toys.

Two years ago, Cat Brushing, a collection of provocative stories about older women still very much in touch with the sensual side of life, put Jane Campbell on the map.

The story takes place in Newark, over the course of a single day in 1957, which we experience from the two spouses' alternating points of view. Jessica Anthony's novel deserves to become a classic.

In her fierce second novel, Sarah Manguso writes a requiem for a failed relationship from the point of view of a survivor, the wife left behind.

In her latest work, Cusk probes questions about the connections between freedom, gender, domesticity, art, and suffering.

Jill Ciment wrote about a relationship she had with a teacher when she was very young – that turned into a marriage – in Half a Life. Now, eight years after his death at 93, she reconsiders their relationship in light of the #MToo movement.